Hi Fintech friends 👋,

Here are the highlights of what happened in African Fintech this week;

• Seven fintech deals were announced including two Merger And Acquisition deals.
• Uber led a $100 Million investment in African mobility fintech.
• Africa’s Unicorn acquired a Microfinance Bank in Pakistan to fuel global expansion. 
• A remittance startup launched a B2B payment platform and became profitable.
• African based VC completed the second close of its second fund at $35 million.
• Nigeria was still detaining executives of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange.
• $40 Million was lost by a commercial bank.
• The interview featured the founder whose startup processed $150 billion in 2023.

💸Fundraise and Exits

• South Africa’s BNPL startup, Float raised $11 million to launch a card-linked installment platform.

• Zone, a Nigerian blockchain startup that helps banks and fintechs process payments, raised $8.5 million, its first VC funding since it became a standalone business in 2022. Until 2022, Zone was part of its parent company Appzone.
• mTek, Kenyan-based insurtech startup that adopts paperless transactions instead of insurance paperwork to streamline and improve processes raised $1.2 Million.

• Access Bank acquired National Bank of Kenya  from the KCB Group, its second acquisition of a Kenyan bank in under five years.
• Brass secured undisclosed new funding, a mix of debt and equity as customers confirm an end to withdrawal delays.
• Egypt-based fintech MNT-Halan acquired Advans Pakistan Microfinance Bank. The terms of the deal remain undisclosed. In 2023, MNT-Halan raised $400 Million in equity and debt financing to fuel global expansion plans.

💰 Venture Funds

• P1 Ventures completed the second close of its second fund at $35 Million to expand its team and operations to Dakar, Senegal, and Nairobi, Kenya. Its portfolio include African Fintechs like KotaniPay, WorkPay, OnePipe, Wallets Africa and others.

🚀 Partnerships & Product Launches

• Nala launched a B2B payments platform dubbed Rafiki, and became profitable.Rafiki powers its consumer fintech app, the cross-border payments platform also targets global businesses making payments into and out of Africa.

• Kuda secured payment licenses in Tanzania and Canada as part of an expansion drive across Africa and the global market.
• Union54 and Mastercard launched ChitChat, a social commerce platform with built-in USD digital wallets in Zambia
• LemFi and Visa partnered to facilitate cross-border transactions in China and India.

• Onafriq and M-PESA signed a deal to enhance Ethiopia’s remittance flow.

• Octamile introduced PayCover, an AI-powered platform for insurance policy management.
• Congolese fintechs partnered with the government to create Congolese Fintech Network (CFN), that aims to increase access to investment opportunities.In Congo, the fintech sector has seen steady growth in recent years. Tuma’s $500,000 funding round in October, the largest ever in Congo’s fintech space, was an example of the industry’s progress.
• Stanbic IBTC Bank and Easybuy partnered to make smartphone ownership more accessible.
• OurPass, the e-commerce one-click checkout company that pivoted to business banking in June 2022, said it will acquire Microfinance Bank license to offer more banking services to customers.
• Visa and Thunes Expanded Reach to Asia and Africa in Cross-Border Payment

👔 Leadership Lineup

• Despite a court hearing not extending their detention, two Binance executives remained held in Nigeria after 25 days.

Tigran Gambaryan, head of the criminal investigations team, and Nadeem Anjarwalla, the regional manager for Africa, were arrested by the National security adviser's office in Abuja shortly after arriving in the country's capital. They had come to discuss the government's restrictions on cryptocurrency exchanges.

📰 News of the Week

• Moove raised $100 Million led by Uber at $750 Million Valuation. 

Moove secured $100 million in funding round to expand into new markets, offering vehicle financing to ride-hailing and delivery app drivers.The company has raised $250 million in equity (and $210 million in debt) to date.The company operates in 13 cities across six markets, including Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, the U.K., India and the UAE. Moove said it plans to use the new capital to expand its revenue-based vehicle financing platform to 16 markets by the end of 2025.

Uber’s investment in Moove is the first company’s investment in an Africa-founded startup.Last August Moove had 15,000 customers who completed more than 22 million trips. Now it facilitates more than 30 million trips for over 20,000 customers across its six markets. Moove’s annual recurring revenue also increased from $90 million to $115 million during this period.

👀 Eye Openers; From Remittance to B2B Payments and services

In September 2023, Chipper Cash, an African cross-border payments provider, launched Chipper ID, an in-house ID verification product, which was later opened up to all businesses, marking its entry into the B2B world. In February 2024, the company expanded its B2B offerings with the launch of Chipper for Business, including bulk disbursements, bulk collections, and FX services. This shift signaled Chipper Cash’s full commitment to the B2B sector.

Similarly, Nala, which initially focused on remittance services to increase economic opportunity for Africans worldwide, evolved its mission to build payments for the next billion. In March 2024, Nala launched Rafiki, its first B2B payments platform, designed to enhance reliability, streamline payouts, and reduce payment costs. With Rafiki, global remittance and payroll companies can integrate directly to facilitate direct deposits into recipients' mobile money wallets or bank accounts. This move reflects Nala's strategic expansion into the B2B market

Nala's CEO reassured that their B2B payments service would not interfere with their consumer services in any capacity. “So how do we manage both the NALA consumer app and our infrastructure business? We split up the company, separate AWS, separate engineering team, ops and org structure so they can operate independently, make decisions fast and execute efficiently” 

Is remittance a pathway to B2B payments and services? Should we expect more remittance companies to venture into B2B payments? While B2B payments present a significant market opportunity in Africa, major players like Flutterwave, Cellulant, and Onafriq already operate within it. I'm very interested to see the value and gaps these newly launched B2B payment solutions by remittance companies will fill.

📑 Read of the week

• From Unicorns to Uncharted Territories: Navigating Africa’s FinTech Landscape. (Techcabal)
• Paystack alumni have founded over fourteen African startups. (Benjamindada)
• Have the neobanks won?. (Ngozi)

📖 Other News, Reads, and Media

• The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia lost $40 million when customers realized they could withdraw more cash than they had in their accounts due to the glitch. Before the bank could halt transactions, more than $40 million had been transferred or withdrawn.
• Digital fraud in Tanzania's commercial banks increased by 84% in Q4 2023.The Central Bank of Tanzania sent out a memo on March 5, saying about $647,000 got swiped through mobile and internet banking scams, including cyber-attacks, in the fourth quarter. That's a big jump from TSh $353,600) in the third quarter.Theft from ATM card skimming also shot up by 60%.
• TechStars-backed GetEquity said it is raising $1 million to add bonds and fixed-income assets.It will compete with wealth management platforms like Risevest, which recently acquired Chaka, Cowrywise, and Piggyvest.
• Flutterwave Named Fast Company’s Most Innovative Company for Europe, Middle East, and Africa 2024

🎥 VIDEO INTERVIEWS/DISCUSSIONS

• A Chat with Tosin Eniolorunda, CEO of Moniepoint Group, a global, all-in-one, digital financial services provider with operations in Nigeria and an ongoing expansion into other emerging markets. The company processed over 5 billion in transactions in 2023 valued at over $150 billion, a big jump from the $100 billion it processed in the previous year.

🦉 Tweet of the Week

🎯 Fintech Opportunities

• Jumo is hiring for business and reporting analyst.
• Julaya is hiring for Cash manager international.
• Kuda is hiring for senior product manager - core. Banking.
• Yassir is hiring for head of Engineering - Super app.

Made in Tanzania 🇹🇿 with 💚

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